“second star to the right” by Savannah Parker

gliding across blue-lit screens, Cursor
labors alongside his User, determined
to learn J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan
and wondering where he can procure
pixie dust—perhaps Etsy, or Amazon,
that Bezos fellow seems to have everything—
and he knows the impracticality of particles
bestowing a flying capability to those
who’ve obtained both faith and trust,
and he typically doesn’t ponder
silly possibilities like Tinker Bell but
another headline broke today
and User had known it needed to be read,
clicking bruised links, cobalt
and indigo, causing Cursor to run
down names he shouldn’t have to know
and sliding along crowded scenes encased
in yellow tape, raging at the sunshine color,
its repeating message scrawled in bloodied ink,
a mocking mimicry.
Cursor has come to hate yellow,
but pixie dust is golden.

Savannah Parker is an English major at Palm Beach Atlantic University. She is a native Floridian, originally born in Tallahassee but raised in Tampa. As the oldest of five children, she can often be found escaping with her nose in a book. When not reading or writing, she can be found scouting out new coffee shops and restaurants nearby.